The first future, the gloomy one, is one in which constant
surveillance turns our politicians into plastic people, and turns
creative, thoughtful people—people who are willing to think out
loud—off from pursuing public office. The second future is the one in
which the current plasticness becomes so unsustainable that it goes the
other way—we become much more comfortable with awkward phrasing.

Unfortunately, she concludes, the gloomy future strikes her as the more likely one.
It has something to do with the way the media—writ large, new and
old—teaches us all to be strategists, not citizens, and to think poorly
of someone as a strategist, not a person, for saying something stupid.

There is plenty to hope for, not least that the legions of Daily Show viewers who see politics as just one more charade (thanks in no small part of our friends in the Bush administration) can learn to cope with candidates as real people instead of plastic mockeries of humanity.